audio cd's crashing my inspiron

rij73 · May 6th, 2003, 10:10 AM

Wondering if anyone would have a clue as to what might be the cause of certain audio cd's crashing my dell inspiron 2650 notebook. (xp home).

It happens with about 1 in 10 cd's. Putting it in my cd drive (cd-rw) will cause a worse than normal grinding sound, and the computer will completely stop responding. In some cases the computer just abruptly shuts off. When this happens with a cd, it will happen every time I try to play that cd. Like I said, I estimate it happens with about a tenth of my cd collection. I have to mark which ones I can't use in my computer!

The folks at Dell have had nothing intelligent to say on the matter. Maybe I could get them to replace the machine, but the problem is that I wouldn't want to trade it in for a machine with possibly worse problems! And, anyway, I'd be without a computer for a while, and that is just not possible.

Any clues?

JayMan · May 6th, 2003, 10:28 AM

What CD's are they? Perhaps they have one of the many cd-audio copy protection schemes used on some cd's now. Any audio CD with copy protection MUST display a warning on the front cover saying they are copy protected and cannot be played in a PC or MAC...

I think freezing is one of the things that can happen when a copy protected cd is put into the drive...

If it is indeed the fact they are copy protected, you can sometimes get your money back for the cd... Especially if the copy protected disc still contains the "CD-Digital Audio" logo, as its actually illegal for copy protected disc's to contain that logo (the copy protection means the disc doesn't meet "red book" standards, for a disc to hold the cd-da logo it must fully meet redbook standards...)

Are the discs damaged in anyway (scratchs, etc...)?

JayMan

rij73 · May 6th, 2003, 10:31 AM

Actually, some of the cd's are really old, and some are newer, so I doubt it's the copy protection. I hadn't thought about scratches... It's possible that might be part of the problem. But, I know that some pretty scratched up cd's have worked fine.

Agent_Embryo · May 6th, 2003, 10:33 AM

Run the Dell Diagnostics CD you got with your Inspiron. It will tell you if there's a hardware error. If it is, phone Dell. Once you tell them you ran the diagnostics they should be alot easier to deal with.

Hope you get this working alright!

/AE

rij73 · May 6th, 2003, 10:35 AM

I tried that, and there's no error. strange, hm?

Agent_Embryo · May 6th, 2003, 10:40 AM

Hm. I've worked with alot of Inspirons and some CD-drives have seemed a bit sketchy. Dell would probably tell you to:

* Update to the latest Bios (Very Easy, you just make a boot disk and boot on it)
* Clear BIOS settings by turning on Caps-, Num- and Scroll lock and then pressing Alt + E, Alt + F and then Alt + B (exit and reboot)

That's what they suggested last time we had a bad CD-Rom. I'm not sure how much this would help you tho.

Peter M · May 6th, 2003, 11:55 AM

That's probably what was meant to be copy protection. Actually, in many CD player devices, particularly CDROM and DVD drives, car and portable CD players, these actually prevent legit use of legitimately bought material.

This is because these discs usually have deliberately screwed up table-of-contents information, premanufactured ECC errors in the track data, and other manipulations beyond the established RedBook AudioCD standard. Some drives really hiccup on those, even throwing their mechanical parts out of whack.

Some of the latest "audio" discs even try to install some sneaky software onto your PC.

The solution? Don't buy them. And if you got them already, ask the record company for a replacement that actually complies with the CompactDisc standard.